Maybe
by Leia 96
Summary: Esme is struggling desperately to hold her family together when two strange vampires who call themselves Alice and Jasper swoop in and claim that one day they'll be a part of her family, too. One-shot.


**Maybe**

_**AN:**____So I got this idea, wrote it, had spockjasperzukowriting (thank you!) beta it (which was really exciting because I finally figured out how that whole thing works!) and then didn't feel like going through and fixing everything. And then yesterday I got the most wonderful news: I'm going to see Eclipse two days early because a friend won tickets and he's giving them to me! And so then I was suddenly magically in the mood to edit this and so I did and in case you haven't noticed I'm really really super hyper right now! So I hope you guys like this! R&R!_

I placed my cold, pale hand on top of Rosalie's, and then tried to keep the pain from my eyes when she pulled hers away. She exhaled sharply, and the cool air blew a strand of blonde hair away from her face. I kept my eyes down as she stood and marched out of the room, and I couldn't help but flinch at the thud of the slamming door.

"Rose, dear," I said quietly. I knew she could hear me. "I'm sorry I mentioned it." I heard her sigh. Somehow, it was a harsh sound, though I knew it was full of pain. Rosalie hid beneath anger whenever she thought life was getting too painful, too difficult.

I listened as her footsteps faltered and she came to a stop. I heard the whisper of her hair as she turned her head to look back at the closed door. I heard a slight intake of breath, as if she was about to speak, but she didn't say anything. She exhaled in a gust, and her footsteps began to fade as she walked down the hall and towards the back door.

I sighed and stared at my knees. Rosalie was hurting so much, and would never admit it. Her pain grew and grew the longer she neglected it; the smallest things would set her on edge.

Tonight, for instance. Emmett, and Edward had gone hunting, and Carlisle was in his office studying. I had found her sitting alone on an unused bed, looking at the floor. I don't know what had reminded her of her horrible past, but I had tried to talk to her about it. That was when she had stormed, so furious I could practically see the smoke coming from her ears.

I knew that, though she loved Emmett dearly, she still felt horribly betrayed whenever she remembered what that man, Royce, had done to her. I knew that she still had waking nightmares of him, and-possibly even more frightening to her-she still desperately wanted everything that he could have given her. She wanted to be a wealthy, high society woman whom everyone admired, and she wanted children. Just like I did, she wanted to be a mother. And I knew that more than anything, Emmett wished he could give her that.

I knew that she hated being a vampire, and I knew that Carlisle, at times, felt horrible for having condemned her to this fate. Edward often complained that Rosalie's thoughts were filled with heartless, crude remarks, and maybe they were, but I could see through his facade as easily as I could see through hers; I knew that the main reason he was constantly trying to escape her mind was the blinding pain that followed her wherever she went.

Her pain, the pain that she was terrified to face, was causing everyone in this family pain. I had to help her. My family would never be complete with a hole as big as hers in it. White-hot sparks flew from her wherever she ventured, burning the ones who loved her the most. Dousing her was the only way to save my family.

My decision made, I stood up. I would wait until she came back, hopefully in less of a fit of anger, and then I would sit her down and talk to her. In the mean time, I would go upstairs and read with Carlisle, even if he was studying large books on medicine as I tried to distract myself with classic romantic tales.

I hesitantly knocked on the polished mahogany door to his study, though I knew he'd heard my whispering footsteps long before that. He made a quiet grunting sound, and I smiled slightly as I turned the knob. I stood in the doorway until he looked up at me, and when he smiled back at me, I pulled a book off the shelf and squeezed myself into the chair with him, leaning into his side and resting my cheek on his shoulder.

About twenty minutes later, as I was just beginning to lose myself in the budding romance between Edward Rochester and Jane Eyre, I heard the front door fly open, slam shut, and Rosalie give an angry sigh. I had expected that she would stay away for much longer-it seemed as if each time I brought up her past, she stayed away a little longer. Most likely, from the angry sigh I'd heard, she was still fuming. I would leave her be for a while longer. I could be patient; she would come to me when she was ready.

And she did. Immediately, I heard her running up the stairs, straight to the door to Carlisle's study. Less than a second later, she burst in without knocking, which was strange-especially for her. I saw the look on her face and stood up. She looked. . . concerned. Worried, even. Her eyebrows were pulled together in the middle, her eyes were wide, and her lips were pressed into a thin line.

"Rosalie?" Carlisle asked, and I saw that he had also stood up. She hesitated, looking down.

"It's probably nothing, but I came across some foreign scents . . . there are two vampires that I've never met, and I think they're headed here. I don't know why, but I thought you should know, just in case they're a problem . . . " She looked up at us, her eyes flat and emotionless as she threw up her well-worn shield.

Carlisle looked from me to her. "I'm sure they're just curious . . . " He trailed off as he caught Rosalie's raised eyebrow and my worried expression. " . . . But we should be prepared for anything. Thank you, Rosalie." Rosalie nodded and I exhaled sharply in relief.

Carlisle held his arm out to me, and I rested my hand just inside the crook of his elbow, just as he had shown me so many years ago. He took his other arm and wrapped it around Rose's shoulders in an affectionate gesture that all three of us knew would also allow him to control her if it came to that. He then pulled us down the cold stone steps at an agonizingly slow, human pace. He settled me down on the sofa, sat down next to me, and settled Rose on his other side. Very calm, very deliberate. I knew that he had heard the almost-argument between me and her, and I was sure that this was to keep us from arguing again.

It was only a few minutes later that I heard two pairs of footsteps just outside the house. They were quick and quiet enough that they had to belong to vampires, just as Rosalie had said. One set was light and whispering; it sounded as if the owner was dancing around, taking a more curling, winding path than his or her partner. The other vampire was quiet, but he or she had heavier, almost wary footsteps. He or she was taking a straight, direct path, but still managing to walk next to the other vampire. I could hear that they were heading toward the door, also as Rosalie had said. I turned to Carlisle, and then tilted my head back just a bit so I could see Rose. Both were staring unwaveringly at the front door, so I turned my eyes toward the same direction.

I could hear the two whispering almost silently. Though I couldn't make out the words, I thought I could detect the voice of a girl and a man. Then I heard the girl speak, loud and clear, sounding slightly amused.

"Oh fine," she said, and it was almost as if I could hear the smile in her voice. "_I'll_knock, if you insist on being so stubborn." I heard a deep, throaty chuckle from the man, and then three, quiet knocks on the door. Carlisle stood up and flitted to the door, Rose and I right behind him. Carlisle pulled the door open and we examined the two figures huddled in the door way.

The first one I noticed was the man. He was tall, lean and well-muscled. He had curly, shaggy blond hair that fell into his inky black eyes in a manner that was not at all acceptable. However, his prominent cheek bones, sharp jaw line, and thick lashes over rid the lack of a haircut, and I decided he was quite beautiful, even for a vampire. Or, he _would_ have been, had his smooth, pale skin not been covered completely in scars. They were deep scars, and even if they had not all been in the shape of teeth, the fact that they were there at all meant that they were obviously the marks left from vampire bites.

Every vampire has at least one mark like that somewhere, some even have two or three from fights that occurred after they were turned. Those were vampires you knew were strong, because it meant they had survived, had won the fight. But how a man could get in so many fights to be completely covered in these marks was baffling to me. How violent must this man be to have ended up in so many fights? How strong must he have been to have won every single one?

I knew I was gawking, so, with some difficulty, I slid my eyes to the petite, smiling woman who was clinging to his elbow.

She was very small; the blond man towered over her. She was significantly shorter than even I was, most likely not even 5 feet. Her eyes were wide and eager and as inky as her companion's. She had short dark hair that came to her chin and was spiked such that she almost looked like a drawing. Her face was narrow and her features, from her perfect, straight nose to her soft-looking, curvy lips were all very petite. Her wide, twinkling smile contrasted drastically with the hard, cautious look in the eyes of the blond man.

"Carlisle!" the girl cried, and she leaped forward and tried to throw her arms around him. The blonde man swiftly grabbed the back of her shirt and pulled her back to stand next to him. Had this girl just called my husband by name without introductions?

"Alice," the blonde man said quietly, "Careful. You're scaring them." I thought I caught the hint of a very faint accent in his voice. Texan, maybe? Definitely southern.

Her smile faded and she turned to him, sticking out her tongue. "_You're_ scaring them," she teased.

In all honesty, both of them were scaring me in slightly different ways.

The blonde man chuckled quietly. "Maybe. But you still have to be careful." He turned to us. "I'm Jasper, this is my . . . this is Alice." He held his hand out to shake with someone. Carlisle, a moment too late, put his hand out and shook politely.

Jasper let go of Alice's shirt and in a few quick steps, she was standing next to me, smiling her sweet little smile. "Hello, Esme," she said. She seemed to be waiting for me to do something, and when I did nothing, she held out her arms, as if for a hug. At least she seemed to be taking Jasper's advice to heart, I thought wildly. Hesitantly, I obliged.

"Hello, Alice," I said, still completely confused. Alice pulled out of the hug and then looked at Rosalie. I saw her smile drop and her eyes fall to the ground. I frowned and turned to look at Rose, too.

Rose's face was some mixture of anger and confusion. She had her knees slightly bent, as if she had been about to sink into a crouch but then decided not to.

"Rosalie," Alice said quietly. "Don't worry. We're going to be friends." Her face lit up once more. "I've _seen_ it."

Well what did that mean? And how was it that she knew everyone's names without a single introduction when I knew that she had never met any of us?

Alice's face scrunched up in frustration as she looked around. "But. . . where are. . . oh _never mind,_" she said, catching Jasper's exasperated expression.

"They're very confused, Alice. Maybe you should explain... _everything._ In detail. In chronological order. With complete sentences." His lip curled up at the corner into a smirk and he chuckled. It made him seem less intimidating, and that allowed me to pull myself together.

"Come in," I told him, but it came out sounding like a question. Then he smiled a real smile and all of my fear subsided. He made me feel calm and relaxed when he smiled. His face looked beautiful like that-he should smile more often.

I could see that I wasn't the only one who was put immediately at ease with his smile. The worried crease between Carlisle's eyes had smoothed out again, and even Rosalie had straightened up from her half-crouch and relaxed her shoulders.

I waved him in with and easy smile. He stepped over the threshold, placed one hand on each of Alice's shoulders, steered her over to the sofa, then sat down next to her. There was room for at least two more people there, but Carlisle, Rosalie and I all placed ourselves in various other chairs.

"I get visions of the future," Alice said abruptly. I was surprised for a moment, before I remembered that it was normal for some vampires to have special talents, like Edward's mind-reading. I glanced at Rose and Carlisle, gauging their reactions. Rosalie who had one eyebrow raised skeptically, while Carlisle's face remained smooth and seemingly emotionless.

I glanced back at Alice, whose eyes were fixed on Rosalie's reaction. "Really, it's true," she said, nodding vigorously. "How do you think I knew everyone's names? I also know that two of you are not here: Edward and Emmett. And," she hesitated. "I know why you have strange yellow eyes. I know that you don't hunt humans."

"Of course, the last thing I want is to be rude," Carlisle began. "But . . . what exactly are the two of you-" he paused for a moment. "What exactly are you two doing here?"

Alice smiled and opened her mouth to speak, but Jasper interrupted her.

"Alice, may I?" he asked, looking down at her. She shut her mouth and smiled in a sweet-little-girl style as she nodded.

"As you can see," he began, gesturing to his face and neck, and then his arms, then gently touching his index finger to one of the many scars there, "I was one of many, many newborns recruited as a soldier. As a human, I lived in Houston, Texas, and I was a soldier in the Civil War. A woman from Mexico named Maria changed me so I could fight in her army of newborns. She became fond of me, though, and she decided not to dispose of me after I reached my year mark. I became her right-hand man. I was-" he cringed and then corrected himself. "-_am_ an excellent fighter. But after a long, long time, it made me sick. The whole thing: I was sick and tired of it.

"I have a talent-nowhere near as useful or impressive as Alice's," he said, chuckling down at Alice, who was staring wide-eyed, not at him, but at us. "But it's useful. I'm empathic. I can feel and often control other's emotions. But whenever we attacked a coven, I could feel their fear and horror and pain as if it were my own. I decided to leave with one of my close friends, who had plans to leave the army with his mate. I went with them, and it was definitely better, but feeding was still hard. I could still feel the humans' pain and fear and desperation, and it killed me. I started trying to starve myself, but then I just had less control. It only made my attacks volatile and unpredictable. However, I still didn't have a better option when I met Alice, just a few years ago.

"She remembers nothing of her human past. Nothing of how she became a vampire. She doesn't even remember her change. But, as she so bluntly told you guys, she has visions of the future, and the first memory she has is a vision of us and you living together as a family. Of course, when I met her, just like now, she wasn't anywhere near that descriptive or clear in her explanation. She was just speed talking all over the place." He laughed and she buried her face in his shoulder. "Eventually though, the entire story came out and she told me how you live here, and then she told me that some day we'd be a part of that." Jasper's forehead wrinkled and his eyebrows pulled up a little in the middle, and for the first time since he and Alice had shown up, he looked apprehensive.

All they wanted was a family. I could sympathize with that.

Jasper hadn't had a family in almost a hundred years. For almost a hundred years, his life had been nothing but death and destruction, and I may not be empathic, but I could see in his face and body when he talked about it that it ate him up inside. He hated killing, but knew of no other way to survive. He had been taught that the world of vampires was a kill-or-be-killed world, and he simply wanted to live.

Alice had no memory of her family-if she'd even had one. She'd been alone with dreams of our little family of misfits for years, until she'd met Jasper and been hit with the realization that maybe her dreams weren't just dreams. These two had only each other.

And us. They would, from now on, have a mother and a father, two brothers, and a sister. They would have a family, I would welcome them into my home with open arms.

Naturally, Carlisle was thinking the same thing.

"Of course, we'd love to welcome you to our family," he said. Alice leaped off the couch so energetically that she almost touched the high ceiling.

"Oh, excellent, Carlisle! Which room should we move into?" Carlisle made a face, not as if he was angry or disapproving, just perhaps a bit shocked at the girl's energy and enthusiasm level.

"Oh, dear, I can take you to look at the rooms," I told her. She smiled her charming smile at me again.

"Thank you, Esme," she said. The two of us flew up the stairs together, leaving the blondes together in the parlor.

I thought I was going to show her all of our spare rooms and ask her which one she wanted, but she walked down the hall very purposefully without waiting for me to show her anything. She stopped suddenly at the fifth door on her left. Why?

"I want this room," she said as she opened the door.

"Um . . . why? We have quite a few spare rooms . . . " I stammered, completely puzzled.

"This room has the best view," she said simply, a smile in her eyes. It, in point of fact, did not have the best view. This room had a medium-sized window that over looked the driveway. I could think of at least two spare rooms that had larger windows that looked out over the beautiful forest behind our house. Besides, this room was taken.

"But, this is Edward's room," I told her. She nodded pleasantly, then laughed a tinkling laugh.

"I like it. We can move his things into the garage until he picks a spare room." She pulled an armful of books off of one of his shelves and placed them in a cardboard box filled with his records. I watched her in amazement as she continued packing things up in cases and boxes, humming as she worked.

This girl, this tiny girl, had such a huge personality. She and Jasper were going to be my children, just like Edward and Emmett and Rosalie were. I wasn't just going to be a mother of three, but a mother of five.

That thought brought me to Rosalie. Because Rosalie would never be a mother, and that was a wound she would never heal from. She would always keep wanting it, and she would always be reminded of how close she was. Her fierce pain and her mask of anger would always be trying to eat at this family unless I found a solution.

Maybe Alice and Jasper were that solution. Maybe Jasper was soothing enough to keep her calm enough to talk to us. Maybe Alice's shining persona was strong enough to balance out Rosalie's darkness. Maybe Alice would even end up being right in her earlier assumption that she and Rose would be good friends. Maybe Alice could help her solve her problems where I could not.

Maybe it wasn't all up to me after all.


End file.
